October 23, 2016

Bob Dylan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel prize and existential absurdity

There is some poetic justice in the discomfiture that the Swedish Academy that awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan is feeling over his indifference to it. A committee member has described Dylan’s silence over the honor as “impolite and arrogant.” Well, if you look at it, indifference to societal norms has been Dylan’s entire creative career. So no surprise there.

In a way Dylan’s indifference is somewhat reminiscent of the French author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s rejection of the same prize in 1964. Sartre, of course, is known for many philosophical constructs but is best known for L'Etre et le néant (Being and Nothingness), 1943, which the Nobel Prize’s official biography described as “a massive structuralization of his concept of being, from which much of modern existentialism derives.” Existentialism is one of those ideas that many talk about without quite getting a real grip on it. It is about the nature of being and absurdity of existence. That’s the best I can sum up in a single line.

Coming back to Dylan’s indifference to the honor, I think it has to be seen from the standpoint of existentialist absurdity. He did not seek the prize. Having been conferred, should he feel obliged to at least acknowledge it? From an existential point of view all prizes are nothing but some laudatory citation on an expensive piece of paper written in cursive inside a frame. They often carry some money, which is the operative part. Most poets do need the money that comes with the prize. Perhaps Dylan does not.

I am not quite sure what to make of Dylan’s silence. Is it “impolite and arrogant”? Sure, it is in so much as means that someone made a gracious gesture towards you and you do not have the grace to acknowledge it. However, if that gesture is the very consequence of a career-long display of living outside the norms, then one should hardly be surprised at illustration of of living outside the norms by not acknowledging.

Let me paraphrase Sartre. If the Swedish Academy found Dylan worthy of the Nobel Prize, it is because he is worthy of it. Within the Academy’s experience, his worthiness is not an aspect of its image Dylan’s, rather it is a feature of his towards which the Academy’s consciousness directs itself.

So if Dylan continues to be silent on the Nobel Prize to the extent of not even rejecting it like Sartre did, we can do nothing about it. We can put it down in the column of existential absurdity.

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Bob Dylan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel prize and existential absurdity

There is some poetic justice in the discomfiture that the Swedish Academy that awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan is feeling over his indifference to it. A committee member has described Dylan’s silence over the honor as “impolite and arrogant.” Well, if you look at it, indifference to societal norms has been Dylan’s entire creative career. So no surprise there.

In a way Dylan’s indifference is somewhat reminiscent of the French author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s rejection of the same prize in 1964. Sartre, of course, is known for many philosophical constructs but is best known for L'Etre et le néant (Being and Nothingness), 1943, which the Nobel Prize’s official biography described as “a massive structuralization of his concept of being, from which much of modern existentialism derives.” Existentialism is one of those ideas that many talk about without quite getting a real grip on it. It is about the nature of being and absurdity of existence. That’s the best I can sum up in a single line.

Coming back to Dylan’s indifference to the honor, I think it has to be seen from the standpoint of existentialist absurdity. He did not seek the prize. Having been conferred, should he feel obliged to at least acknowledge it? From an existential point of view all prizes are nothing but some laudatory citation on an expensive piece of paper written in cursive inside a frame. They often carry some money, which is the operative part. Most poets do need the money that comes with the prize. Perhaps Dylan does not.

I am not quite sure what to make of Dylan’s silence. Is it “impolite and arrogant”? Sure, it is in so much as means that someone made a gracious gesture towards you and you do not have the grace to acknowledge it. However, if that gesture is the very consequence of a career-long display of living outside the norms, then one should hardly be surprised at illustration of of living outside the norms by not acknowledging.

Let me paraphrase Sartre. If the Swedish Academy found Dylan worthy of the Nobel Prize, it is because he is worthy of it. Within the Academy’s experience, his worthiness is not an aspect of its image Dylan’s, rather it is a feature of his towards which the Academy’s consciousness directs itself.

So if Dylan continues to be silent on the Nobel Prize to the extent of not even rejecting it like Sartre did, we can do nothing about it. We can put it down in the column of existential absurdity.